In many industries, particularly in packing machines, a crank drive is a conventional drive element for transporting work pieces. In many cases the work piece is moved from a first stationary position to a second stationary position spaced from the first stationary position, where it can be further processed.
In other applications the work piece is transferred in a "flying" manner, that means the work piece is transferred to the processing station prior to the reversal of the crank.
Thus it is known to transfer the work piece from a first stationary position at a certain uniform transfer velocity to a processing station. If, however, for example as a result of the capacity of any machines postcoupled to the processing station, any change in the rhythm of the pieces successively transported to the processing station occurs, or, alternately, if the spacing between transported work pieces is to be changed, and where the velocity of any tool of the processing station remains unchanged for technological reasons, then the transfer rhythm cannot be changed by changing the velocity of the crank drive, without also changing the transfer velocity.